Author Archives: TomSlatter

On gigging and economics

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Last week I played my first ‘solo artist’ gig with a full band behind me.

We played well, the band were great and more importantly I crossed a new threshold – people came because they know me as a musician, rather than a family/friendship connection.

Okay, not many people, but considering that I don’t often play live it was a good start and I am very grateful to those that came.

So in terms of a piece of art I was happy with it.

However, in economic terms it was awful. Rehearsing a band costs money, and this was one of those ‘bring enough people along and I’ll pay you’ gigs, rather than a straight cut of the door.

I just missed the threshold, I didn’t get paid. I’m not complaining, this was the deal I agreed and my main motivation was to make the gig happen rather than to cover costs.

Even if I’d kept every penny that people who came to see me paid at the door, I still would have been out of pocket by more than £50.

I can’t afford that.

I enjoy gigging?

What to do?

The obvious solution is to cut costs and cut middlemen. My next little project, after initial online promotion of the new album, will be to have a go promoting my own gig.

The princples I’ll follow will be:

  • Small, not too expensive venue
  • Solo – just me and one or two other solo artists. I love playing with a band but economically it doesn’t make sense at this stage.
  • Good quality – I’ve asked my family and friends to come to too many gigs where they don’t see any great acts apart from mine (That sounds conceited, but I think it’s fair comment).
  • Make very clear to all audience members the costs and be exceedingly grateful for their contribution. Get a bit of fellow feeling and support.
  • Record – get a decent recording audio and/or video that can be shared.

That’s the plan, as vague as it is. Only good gigs from now on!

Freedom of Expression and the Sound of the Ladies

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Last Tuesday I performed for the fourth time at the Green Dragon in Croydon, for Tim Eveleigh’s Freedom Of Expression.

Freedom of Expression is a lovely little night run by lovely people on a pub with lovely beer (and, on Tuesday, a cider that was to die for – but alas so strong that more than one pint might indeed have been potentially fatal).

Before I performed, Martin ‘The Sound of the Ladies’ Austwick played a set. Martin’s a great songwriter who writes quirky little indie songs about sciencey things. And Bricks.

He has a new album out soon – you can find out more on his blog.

I hardly prepared for my own set – I had a vague notion of which songs I might perform but mostly I played it by ear.

The set list was :

1. Sing for a Sail
2. Beast of the Air
3. August and Whiteface
4. Something’s Bound to Happen
5. Self made Mad
6. Demon

Next from me will be the new album – that’s probably a few months away still, and I’ll be moving house at some point in the next couple of months so that’s going to take up quite a bit of my time. We’ve just bought our first house, which is exciting, but what with having to have a day job as well I might not have enough time to devote to the new album over the Christmas period.

If you want to stay up to date with the new album, I’d suggest subscribing to the mailing list:

Stabbing a Dead Horse – A review.

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Did Prog rock die back in the 1970s? If so, its zombie corpse is alive and rocking in a thoroughly modern way.

On Friday I went to the last night of the ‘Stabbing a Dead Horse‘ tour at the Lexington in London. This tour was a week long affair involving Trojan Horse, Knifeworld and The Fierce and the Dead, that had taken in several cities around the UK and by all accounts been rather successful.

Friday certainly was. I wasn’t able to stay for Knifeworld’s set (which is a shame, cos they’re bloody good on record) but I did catch the other two bands.

Trojan Horse are a four piece from Manchester: all stop-start rhythms, hard-rock, mellotron and lots and lots of facial hair. There’s a danger that prog can be inaccessable the first time you hear it, less immediate than simple four chord rock songs. That isn’t the case with Trojan Horse. The music might have been more complicated than the average rock band but even though I hadn’t heard them before I got it immediately.

The vocals were tight and even contained the odd hook (Yo ho ho!) and the whole set was delivered with such passion that you couldn’t help but fall in love with the hairy scamps. The through-composed, constantly changing structures could have lead to concentrated, introspective performances, but Trojan Horse were having none of that – they played with all the energy and loseness of a three chord punk band, but with none of the pretention.

(Hang…. wasn’t punk supposed to be less pretentious than prog…)

The highlight of the night for me was The Fierce and the Dead. I’ve known Matt Stevens online for a few years but this was the first time I’d got round to seeing his band live (and to discovering that Matt is very tall. People are supposed to be smaller in real life aren’t they? But no, Matt is far far taller than his twitter profile pic would have you believe).

The Fierce and the Dead are somewhere between the Pixies, the Shadows and 80’s era King Crimson. Don’t believe me? Go listen to them, it’s true.

Once again this set completely failed to fit into prog stereotypes. All right, there were twisty time signatures and not a verse-chorus structure anywhere in sight, but neither was there any of the self indulgence the genre is supposed to be guilty of. TFATD’s performance was exuberant and celebratory and all about entertaining the audience.

Stevens has been talking on facebook about the idea of a prog revival – or perhaps some new proggish movement that these sort of bands fit into. This gig supports that notion. The Stabbing a Dead Horse tour filled a London venue with a couple of hundred people and played complicated, silly music to an appreciative audience of couple of hundred.

Which gives me hope as a music fan and as someone who plays music of a vaguely similar bent (indeed the new album is going to be far more rocky than the last two, and I’ll be seeing about finding a drummer and doing some full band gigs next year). If British prog did die back in the 70s (it didn’t) then the Stabbing a Dead Horse tour has Frankensteined it back to life.

Weekend at the Asylum – Steampunk festival gig report

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The Steampunk Asylum at Lincoln last weekend was the most enjoyable gig I’ve played for some time.

Here’s some video, courtesy of Mr Andrew Fletcher:

It had looked like I’d have a difficult journey as I needed to get from work in London to Lincoln in only three hours. As it turned out, I had a smooth straight forward journey, arriving at the Charlotte House Hotel at just after 6pm.

My brother Joe, my partner Rachel and our friend Julia left London three hours before me, but arrived only twenty minutes earlier than I did. They claimed the train ahd been delayed, but I suspect they were just getting things wrong.

The first act were Broadarrow Jack, playing their last gig before splitting up. Their set was lots of silly folky fun, including a quite marvellous song about zombie horses. Lots of fun, but sadly you’ll never be able to see them.

Keep an eye out for Crimson Clocks, however which some members of Broadarrow Jack have gone on to perform with.

My own gig was the first with another musician playing my solo songs, as Joe played bass and sang backing vocals.

The setlist included a couple of tracks from Spinning the Compass and the whole of the Miser’s Will from Ironbark.

I can honestly say I haven’t enjoyed a solo gig as much in years. There was an attentive, appreciative audience, no-one through anything and people said nice things afterwards.

The rest of the weekend was having our photos taken by strangers, possibly because of what we were wearing.

All in all, a lovely weekend. It’s also left me itching to play more. I’m sure Joe would be up for playing a few more gigs. Just need to find a drummer. Watch this space, and all that.

 

Freedom Of Expression – Take 3

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Last Tuesday I performed at Freedom of Expression at the Green Dragon. Here’s the vid:

Video streaming by Ustream

This is the third time I’ve performed at the same venue and it’s always fun. As they record and broadcast the gig via Ustream it gives me the fun little challenge of perfoming a completely different set each time.

I’ve ripped the audio from the recording above and you can download it for free, along with the previous gig at the Green Dragon, from the fan page.

Also performing were Jeremy Ayre and Ashley Cowan who I particularly enjoyed. Here’s one of his songs:

What am I doing at the top of a list that includes King Crimson and Genesis?

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Look at the picture above – I’m legitimately at the top of a list that includes King Crimson and Genesis? How surreal. Of course it’s only because I’m a new artist on Progarchives.com, but it still pleases me greatly even though I wouldn’t dream of placing myself above those artists in terms of quality or popularity.

Progarchives is one of my favourite sites, I’ve discovered lots of great music through there, so to be featured is lovely. There are a couple of reviews of my tracks up, including one of Earthbound that says:

‘…It sounds like it belongs in the dream sequence of an indie film. The vocal delivery is akin to John Wetton, but I am reminded of The Ninth Wave from Kate Bush’s The Hounds of Love. It is rare to hear someone do so much with two chords. “Earthbound” generates mixed feelings of being lost but having a sense of calm peacefulness all the same.’

John Wetton is a singer I have a lot of time for, so it’s nice to be compared to him.

Three Rows of Teeth

Anyhoo, what have I been up to? Well the big news is that I’m recording my third solo album. Backing tracks (Drums, bass, rhythm guitar and keys) are pretty much done, which leaves lead guitars, vocals and silly beepy noises to add. After that mixing and mastering, artwork and so on. Probably another two or three months at the very least before it’s finished.

As pleased as I am with Ironbark, my production skills continue to improve and I want to challenge myself to produce a really good indie record with this. It’ll be more electric guitar based than previous albums but still similar to my rockier numbers. The songs from the Mother’s Been Talking to Ghosts Again EP will be reworked to form part of the album, so you’ve already heard some of the pre-production demos as it were.

There will also be a few other numbers – and if you’ve been following the demos on my 52 Things page, (see above) you’ll have heard most of the album in its embryonic form.

I have good feelings about this project – I think it’s going to be my best music yet.

I’ll keep you posted on my progress.